A camera apparatus equipped with an optical system, a photographing element for converting a light signal of an object to be photographed from the optical system to an electric signal, an A/D conversion unit for converting the electric signal from the photographing element to digital image data, a data compression unit for compressing the image data from the A/D conversion unit with a prescribed form based on a software program. Data conversion converts the compressed data from the data compression unit to a prescribed form of data that is recordable into a direct read after write type optical disk or a rewritable optical disk that records the compressed data. The camera enables a user to watch on a personal computer static images that have been photographed without making data transfer to the personal computer.